Borg timeline error?

[Earl_Grey]

Hi all. I just found this forum and I'm happy to start talking with a lot of you about Star Trek.

I'm no expert, but I think I may have found a pretty significant timeline error maybe someone could confirm or correct me on.

As far as I know, first contact with the Borg was in "Q who? episode, season 2 of TNG. The canon says this was around the year 2366.

However, in Voyager, it's said the Seven of Nine and her parents were assimilated 2356. Wouldn't this dictate first contact for both species? I realize this doesn't mean first contact with Starfleet, but wouldn't the Borg already know what humans were before Q introduced Enterprise D to them?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

However, in Voyager, it's said the Seven of Nine and her parents were assimilated 2356. Wouldn't this dictate first contact for both species?

Not necessarily. Remember, the Hansens went off on their own to search for the Borg. Who says the general population of the Federation even knew about it?

 

[xortex]

Curiosity assimilated the cat.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Then there's Guinan and Soran fleeing the Borg at the start of "Star Trek: Generations"

And Captain Archer taking on surviving Borg from "Star Trek: First Contact" in 2352's "Regeneration" (an excellent episode, btw. One of too few in ENT's early seasons)

 

[T'Girl]

Seven of Nine and her parents

Something, some piece of information, sent the Hanson off on their hunt for this then unknown species.

Guinan and Soran

Both of whom were from a race of listeners, not talkers. it's not impossible that none of the refuges told anyone their story.

 

[Satyrquaze]

Indivduals encountering a given species and not returning to tell anyone about it doesn't count as "First Contact" for the Federation.

El-Aurians, who have never been described as official members of the Federation, getting their homeworld destroyed doesn't count as "First Contact" with the Federation.

Even Archer and the NX-01 doesn't count for two reasons. 1) The Borg oddly never identified themselves, despite that it's normally the first thing they check-off their SOP. 2) The Federation didn't exist at the time.

 

[Deks]

Well, in Enterprise 'Regeneration' episode, we know the Borg sent a message to the Delta Quadrant, and T'Pol mentioned it would take at least 200 years for it to be received.

'Regeneration' episode happened predominantly due to First Contact movie.
The Sphere was destroyed, some debris and 2 drones were stuck in deep ice in Antarctica in late 21st century only to be discovered by early Starfleet in mid 22nd century, waking them and causing them to send a message in the DQ, prompting the Borg into coming to the Alpha Quadrant and assimilating the Hansens in 2354, then later on returning to the Neutral Zone in 2364 and destroying the outposts.

The Hansens btw, deviated from their flight plan and were probably already relatively far away from Federation space when they were chasing after the Borg (they could have heard various rumors from the El-Aurians for one thing, starting with the classified data which had info on a cybernetic race that prompted an incident 2 centuries earlier and were very similar to the Borg).

So, the Hansens kept monitoring the Borg cube for 3 years at close range before they were assimilated.

There is a 7 year gap which doesn't explain why the Borg waited until 2364 to come back to the AQ and attack the outposts.

Possible explanation: the signal which they received from the drones in the 22nd century reached them in 2364 in a garbled state, prompting them to investigate.
From the Hansens, they probably gained very little tactical knowledge and found the Feds of no real interest.
Then come the signal, and it peaks their interest, returning to the AQ in the Neutral Zone, where they laid waste to both Romulan and Fed outposts.

 

[Timo]

we know the Borg sent a message to the Delta Quadrant, and T'Pol mentioned it would take at least 200 years for it to be received.

...An assessment she should not have been able to make.

She could tell where the beam was aimed - but there is no obvious way she could tell how far it would have to go to reach the intended recipients. Two lightminutes is as good a guess as fifty thousand lightyears, or ten million. At each of those distances, there could and would be something in the Trek universe: a hidden ship, a star system, a nearby galaxy.

There is a 7 year gap which doesn't explain why the Borg waited until 2364 to come back to the AQ and attack the outposts.

There is no explanation for why they would wait for a year after the outpost attacks before they made another move, either. It just seems they have no a priori reason to hurry...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[FordSVT]

It is not hard to imagine that Q Who was not really first contact between the Federation and the Borg, but that it was kept top secret, even from Captains of the Enterprise. The Hansens might have been sent to investigate reports of creatures similar to those encountered by the NX-01, for example. The attacks on the Neutral Zone border might have provided more clues.

I always thought to myself that it was just as likely Q saved the Federation by giving Picard and Co. a taste of the Borg, because I have a feeling they may not have been more than a few years away from launching an invasion against the Federation anyway. Better to know your enemy is coming early than not knowing you have an enemy.

 

[You_Will_Fail]

Well I don't think Q Who was necessarily saying that the Borg didn't know what the Federation was, it was more about introducing the Federation to the Borg.
Some people are bothered by the Hansen situation, but I think its worth it for the character of Seven and the amazing "Dark Frontier" which showed us the voyage of the Hansens.

 

[RoJoHen]

I just like that little Annika played with the same Borg ship that I played with as a kid.

 

[Paradon]

I thikn people knew about them, but had never seen them up closed before Q flung the Enterprise-D across the galaxy. People like the Hansen were trying to gather information and learn more about them because they've heard so much about them, but nobody ever really had some kind of prove and hard evidence of what their culture was like. And I guess some people thought they were myths.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I have to wonder on Admiral Hanson and the Hansens might be connected, even though they spell the name differently.

 

[Timo]

Might be their families had a blood feud back when the Swedes (where Son of Hans is spelled with "o") and Danes (spelled with "e") found southern Scandinavia too small for both kingdoms...

...Which is why Hanson sent the Hansens to die, then suppressed records of their doomed flight. Which backfired when he at Wolf 359 relied on the Borg data the Hansens had given him, not realizing the Hansens had set him up.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I have to wonder on Admiral Hanson and the Hansens might be connected, even though they spell the name differently.

I doubt it.

I mean, isn't "Hanson/Hansen" like one of the most common names in the history of the Scandinavian peoples?

I would be MORE likely to believe that Lt. Stiles from "Balance of Terror" is the same as Captain Styles from ST III, if only for the fact that they both act like egotistical jackasses.

 

[Timo]

OTOH, Lt Sty/iles explicitly came from a long family line of warriors, so Capt Sty/iles could well be another sprout of the ol' bush...

Somebody must know whether the intent in ST3 was that the character would be the same... The early scripts and ideas of that movie have been much discussed, after all, what with the Romulan/Klingon switcheroo and all.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Deks]

...An assessment she should not have been able to make.

She could tell where the beam was aimed - but there is no obvious way she could tell how far it would have to go to reach the intended recipients. Two lightminutes is as good a guess as fifty thousand lightyears, or ten million. At each of those distances, there could and would be something in the Trek universe: a hidden ship, a star system, a nearby galaxy.

Good point, but T'Pol was operating on a general premise which probably included minimal distance and current subspace technological capabilities (even with the Borg improvements).

There is no explanation for why they would wait for a year after the outpost attacks before they made another move, either. It just seems they have no a priori reason to hurry...

Timo Saloniemi

Again... good point.
Still, as I said... the signal they received from the Borg in 'regeneration' could have prompted them to look into the NZ and attack the outposts there... finding them unremarkable and not particularly worthy of assimilation.
Then subsequently, Q flungs the Enterprise in front of the cube and the borg realize that something is amiss in how the Enterprise-D avoided impending doom when Q helped.

 

[Timo]

Agreed that this is a likely scenario. I wonder when the Borg decided their "Q Who?" conclusions had been in error, and the Federation remained as dull as ever...

Perhaps the subsequent assimilation or provocation attacks against the Federation were something the Borg just had to do, now that the cat was out of the bag. Even if they fully well knew they had jumped the gun and the UFP wasn't ripe for assimilation quite yet, they now had to proceed according to standard procedure, because going back to "wait and see" would have backfired.

It might have sent the UFP into a fugue where they ignored the Borg and thus failed to develop any interesting and assimilable defenses; the Feds had managed to stay in denial for a century already, after all. Or it might have given the UFP time to develop specific anti-Borg defenses in too great leaps, unless the Borg constantly assimilated the latest inventions and gradually adjusted their response. The Collective is vulnerable to many sorts of attack, but usually manages to wriggle out because attacks are necessarily piecemeal. A culture left aware of the Borg and unchallenged might be able to realize this and to perform a concentrated and all-encompassing attack that would do serious harm, comparable to what Admiral Janeway did in "Endgame".

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Deks]

SF had a contingency plan to fight the Borg, and they had delayed construction of the new battle fleet because the threat was 'less urgent'.
Which was a stupid response if you ask me.
The Borg are a continuous threat and can come at any time.
Seems to me SF didn't learn from it's mistakes and it bit them in the rear end... perhaps they could have avoided the destruction of the Galaxy class at the hands of the Jem'Hadaar in the first encounter.
The Defiants weapons were certainly effective, and it was stated to have been originally designed to fight and defeat the Borg (techs that likely gave it the necessary effectiveness against Dominion tech).
Had SF went ahead and upgraded their ENTIRE fleet accordingly and not waited to get their rear ends kicked, then a fiasco could have been avoided.

Granted, the battle of sector 001 in FC obviously went differently because SF was able to inflict damage onto a cube and destroy it without resorting to unconventional methods (but that happened after the Defiant was released into an active service).
So that implies advancement for SF on a minute front, and if Voy endgame alternate timeline is to be taken into account, the Borg kept giving SF room/time to develop new weapons and defenses against them.

I don't fully agree with how the Borg were portrayed in the Destiny novels (too emotional)... but I would agree with the premise that the Collective could see humanity as a too great a threat that requires intervention (extermination) because if they were able to inflict enormous damage on a large scale to them in one shot when a chance presented itself at a stage when they were still relatively seen as 'raw material', then given enough time to recoup, SF would likely develop some very dangerous methods against the Borg.
I would surmise that SF in Admiral Janeway's timeline managed to 'shape up' in the 16 years it took Voyager to reach the AQ, and 'adapted' in a sense that they started shifting into a sort of overdrive - which also explains how a refitted Nova would also turn out to penetrate shields on a Negh'Var class ship.

That timeline presented a 'sensible' approach if anything.
Contemporary SF could see this as a way to 'relax'.
They may even think the borg are gone just as they did in the novels... though that kind of an assumption would be stupid.
Janeway wouldn't be so idiotic to underestimate the Collective.
She knows how adaptive they can get thanks to 7 of 9 consulting her on them.

 

[Anwar]

The Borg already knew about the Feds before "Q Who?", because they were the ones who attacked the Neutral Zone outposts in the first season. This was briefly mentioned in "Q Who?" but it's easy to miss.